Tending a garden is a gradual process. However, stepping out into the garden in June can feel like everything has happened overnight. Fruit is ready to be harvested, blooms are wonderfully wild and life seemingly bursts from every nook and cranny. If you are feeling overwhelmed, The National Garden Scheme offers some suggestions of what to do.
Essential Summer Gardening Tips
Smart Summer Watering Tips for a Healthy Garden
We’re getting into the season when watering will be important, but remember to do it wisely – not only to conserve water – but also to encourage healthy plants. Too much moisture from over-generous watering near the surface will encourage shallow roots. This could be particularly damaging to new plants, and young shrubs and trees that need to put down deep roots during their first year to become properly established. Watering more thoroughly, but less frequently helps get the water down to the deeper root tips.
Sow Seeds for Organic Gardening
Being organic is often about doing one thing to prevent another. For example, you can control garden pests such as aphids, by attracting beneficial insects that feed on them to your garden. To do this, you should sow the seeds of the poached-egg plant, Limnanthus douglasii, which is one of the best summer annuals for attracting these beneficial visitors. In addition, the low patches of bright yellow and white flowers will look great amongst your vegetables.
Trim Clematis Montana
The different varieties of the popular Clematis Montana do not need regular pruning like other clematis, but this is the time of year, just after they have finished flowering, to give them a trim with secateurs if they need tidying up or keeping in shape.
Feed your Fuchsias
If you have just planted out annual fuchsias in hanging baskets, pots or a window box, remember that they are hungry plants and will ideally need a liquid feed to keep flowering. Apply feed a couple of times a week when you water the plants, and you’ll see impressive results.
Plant out your Brussel Sprouts
In the flurry of summer gardening activity, it is easy to forget the things that need to be done for the succeeding months, such as planting out your brussel sprouts to make sure they are ready to give you a good crop before Christmas. Plant the seedlings 50-60 cm apart. The soil should be fertile, but if you haven’t mixed in the manure weeks ago, don’t do it now – it produces too much nitrogen, and the sprouts don’t develop tightly.
Peg Strawberry Runners
If you grow strawberries they are probably producing long new shoots called runners. Fix them to the ground with some kind of loop, and they will root and produce new plants for next season. Ensure you have got a nice layer of fresh straw ready to keep your strawberries off the ground and protect them from heavy rain.
Hoe Regularly
Even if weeds seem to always reappear, regular hoeing is a very effective way of weakening and eventually killing them off without resorting to weed killers.
Check for Mildew
This is the time of year that mildew appears on the leaves of roses, and on gooseberries and other currant bushes. Check regularly and remove any affected leaves or plant stems.
Net Your Soft Fruit
If you grow soft fruit they will all be very attractive to birds, so if you don’t want all your hard work to disappear in a flurry of greedy wings, make sure your fruit is netted.
Plant Aquatics
Now is a good time to plant aquatics, as the water has warmed up and will encourage growth. If you are submerging plants, it helps if they are in a container that makes them accessible. Also remember that plenty of oxygenating plants keep everything in your pond healthy.
Attend to Tomato Plants
If you have tomato plants that you’ve been growing indoors, they should be put outside now. Make sure they are in a sunny, sheltered position, and that the growing plants are well tied into bamboo canes. They will need daily watering and a weekly feed of liquid fertiliser.
This is the time to nip off the side shoots from your tomato plants to encourage healthy but controlled production along the main stem. Check that the stem is securely, but not too tightly, tied up because it will have grown rapidly during the last week or two.
End of the Asparagus Season
Stop cutting asparagus around now, however tempting those new shoots are. If you don’t, you won’t give the plants enough time to mature for next year. Do not cut the plants down until right at the end of summer, when they have turned yellow.
Trim Hardy Geraniums
Hardy geraniums are among the most indispensable perennial plants, and you can have different ones flowering for months. Most of the first batch, which bloom in early summer, will just be going over now, and it is worth trimming off their dead flowers and flower stems to encourage some more flowers later in the summer.
Stake Your Dahlias
Dahlias, chrysanthemums, and other late-summer flowering specials will be growing apace. They will need support, however, and it is a good idea to put it in place now, before the plants are too big and you risk damaging the flowers that have formed. Thin stakes to tie the plants to, or another type of support frame are ideal.
Prune Ceanothus
Ceanothus often benefit from being pruned, both to keep their shape, and to control their growth vigour. The time to prune them is immediately when they have flowered, so if you have one in flower now, keep an eye out.
Pinch Out Broad Beans
Pinch the shoot off with thumb and finger, this will force the plant to bulk out and concentrate its efforts into producing a crop of beans, rather than on growing.
Cut Rose Suckers
When you’re dead-heading roses make sure you also cut off any suckers – the long stalks with no flowers that grow vigorously from the very base of rose plants. They are ugly, and divert valuable energy resources from your plants
Keep the Greenhouse Ventilated
This is probably the worst time of year for greenhouse bugs and diseases, so it is vital to maintain as much ventilation as possible to encourage fresh air to circulate.
Plant Out Winter Greens
Don’t forget your winter greens. Plant seedlings them 50-60 cms apart and give them a good watering when planted. If you can, keep watering daily in dry weather.
Time for Taking Cuttings
This is a good time to take softwood cuttings from many shrubs and perennials. Look for a plant that has finished flowering and put on some good new growth of stems and leaves. It really is easy, so have a go.
Take a Break: Visit These National Garden Scheme Gardens
Venue: Seaford Gardens North
Dates: Sunday 1st June
Venue: The Old Manor, Nutbourne
Dates: Thursday 5th and Saturday 7th June with Shorts Farm.
Venue: Shorts Farm, Nutbourne
Dates: Thursday 5th and Saturday 7th June with The Old Manor.
Venue: Apuldram Roses, Chichester
Dates: Friday 6th June, pre-booking essential.
Venue: Swallow Lodge, St Leonard’s Park
Dates: Saturday 7th June, pre-booking essential.
Venue: Kotimaki
Dates: Saturday 7th June
Venue: 8 Rushy Mead, West Broyle
Dates: Saturday 7th and 15th June, pre-booking essential.
Venue: Talma, Horsham
Dates: Sunday 8th June.
Venue: The Old Rectory, Warbleton
Dates: 11th and 12th June, pre-booking essential
Venue: The Orchard, Poynings
Dates: Thursday 12th June with Woodlands, pre-booking essential.
Venue: Woodlands, Fulking
Dates: Thursday 12th June with The Orchard, pre-booking essential.
Venue: Alderbury, Pulborough
Dates: Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th June.
Venue: Steyning Gardens, Steyning
Dates: Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd June.
Venue: Meadowside, West Chiltington
Dates: Thursday 26th June
Details of all these gardens can be found on National Garden Scheme.
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